America tops the list of world’s most generous nations

[slime]

I'm half tempted to report you for nation bashing.

[Alydael]

We have a lot of money and we're still religious is my guess as to why

Hell, Bill Gates gives more money away than many countries.





http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a6849221.html

America has been named as the world’s most generous nation in the world, where its citizens give the most to charity, according to a new report.

The USA, New Zealand and Canada have the highest rate of charitable donations as a percentage gross domestic product (GDP), the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) found.

The UK had the fourth highest rate of charitable donations in a study of 24 nations and topped all other EU countries that were looked at.

CAF’s report took data from countries accounting for around 75 per cent of global GDP and 53 per cent of the world population.

Charitable giving by individuals as a percentage of GDP in America was recorded at 1.44%, in New Zealand at 0.79%, in Canada at .77% and in the UK – which came fourth globally – at 0.54%.

The report also analysed the impact of taxation and government spending and the amount given to charity and found there was "no significant correlation" except for employer social security charges, highlighting the complexity behind people’s decisions of when to give and how much.

Adam Pickering, international policy manager at CAF, said: "Across the 24 nations we studied, we found no significant link between government spending, income or corporation tax and the proportion of GDP donated by individuals.

"This suggests the relationship between the amount of taxes people pay and the amount they give to charity is not as clear cut as some may have thought.

“The factors which motivate people to give, and influence how much they give, are incredibly complex."

That's not even counting the "social services" we fund with our taxes. That is charity as well and is well into the billions. Besides the charity built into the tax code, most people I know (even those not well off) give to at least one or two other charities.

We might be the only country in the world that is borrowing trillions from China, then giving billions of it away........ We might want to examine that and think about that a little more closely......

[D3thray]

well, its also the richest first world country if you take size into account.

Its like "wow"ing the fact that china has the largest rice production...

Statistics can always be skewed into one way to make countries sound better or worse than they are.

except that the ranking is based on percentage of GDP which has a normalizing effect on the data i.e. someone giving $1000 on a GDP of $10000 would be the same as someone giving $100 on a GDP of $1000

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32% in religion, that's a bloody waste.

Look up Catholic Charities. Not sure what you think it’s being wasted on but it’s not the church.

[Twix]

USA has the most billionaires in the world.. not surprising at all. Remove donations from billionaires and the results would be way different.

[Zogarth]

Here is the total breakdown of who gave what to what:

Total:
$390.5 billion - 2.1% of GDP

Who gave:
- Individuals - $281.86 billion - 72% (1.44% of GDP)
- Foundations - $59.28 billion - 15%
- Bequests - $30.36 billion - 8%
- Corporations - $18.55 billion - 5%

Cause they gave it to:
- Religious - $122.94 billion - 32%
- Education - $59.77 billion - 15%
- Human Services - $46.8 billion - 12%
- Foundations - $40.56 billion - 10%
- Health - $33.14 billion - 8%
- Public-Society Benefit - $29.89 billion - 8%
- International Charities - $22.03 billion - 6%
- Arts, Culture, Humanites - $18.21 billion - 5%
- Environment/Animals - $11.05 billion - 3%

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So before you hurt yourself bending over backwards to bash to US... Even if you excluded religious offerings, we are still significantly higher than the next highest country. And Bill Gates and his ilk, who make their own foundations, only contributed 15% through those foundations (not trying to diminish their charitable contributions in any way).

While there is still a lot of problems (like why the hell donating to a religious institution is considered a charity), But yeah, America does donate the most to charity, and i am not bashing the US but the study. America has the richest economy in the western world if we look at it overall. But again, what is a charity? Something like Children hospitals is something a lot is donated to in the US, and it is a great course, but in other countries that does not even exist as an option, as the healthcare facilities are already in place through taxes. Same with a lot of education. Why I say the study is flawed. A better study would be to compare how much is donated to solely, for example, cancer prevention and research, something that the US would most likely still rank top in, but at least it would be comparable.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

USA has the most billionaires in the world.. not surprising at all. Remove donations from billionaires and the results would be way different.

This is true but also kind of a dumb standard to use. It would be like looking at the other nations and figuring out why they gave so much and saying "see, if you just take away this top reason they are there... they arent so good".

[Deleted]

Poor, poor people who dont know what is behind those donations.

[Deleted]

'Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.'

[I Push Buttons]

(like why the hell donating to a religious institution is considered a charity)

Habitat for Humanity?
Salvation Army?
YMCA?

Upwards of 20% of the hospitals in the US are non-profits operated by the Catholic Church?

You don't consider these things charity?

And that's all I can think of off the top of my head, I am not religious and don't donate to religious organizations so I am ignorant of the others.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I just checked partially the report.

Sure in sheer number US outweight everybody, but it is also quite previsible that a large country with a wealthy population is scored high in the ranking.
However it is not what the report shows.

Firstly, the authors use their own index to score countries (disregarding the gap in wealth and population) and the US is in 5th position, and it's great for the US. Especially for a country that large, I have no doubt that the US population is indeed one of the most charitable according to its level of wealth. However the report show something else. US goes below the top 10 when its come to the percentage of people giving their time or money which show that their is a "smaller but more generous" population giving to charity.

Finally, every country tends to give less and less over the last 5 years, despite a more positive economy and the US has lost ranking over the year (from #2 to #5). Maybe it was because US had during the last 5 years some reason to give to charity (like hurricane...) or it's a more concerning trend. Don't misunderstand me, I don't blame the US for being less charitable, the US will still give more than my country (and my personnal participation is not great). However I found weird that "US has gone less charitable over the last 5 years and even went down in the scoring" became "US is most generous baby !!!!" which is a clear manipulation of information (by the article).

[schwarzkopf]

According to the current stats - the USA is the 21st most generous nation in the world at 0.15% of GDP.

[Deleted]

I had no idea that Bill Gates were donating on behalf of the US.

You did know he is American, right?

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According to the current stats - the USA is the 21st most generous nation in the world at 0.15% of GDP.

Most of that is donated to Christian telepreachers in need of a new Learjet though.

[I Push Buttons]

According to the current stats - the USA is the 21st most generous nation in the world at 0.15% of GDP.

Why are you quoting from this list?

That isn't even a charity, that's government aid to developing countries?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...country_donors

[schwarzkopf]

Why are you quoting from this list?

From Wikipedia and sources ... after all generosity is about GIVING TO OTHERS.

Title of thread ---> 'generous nations' <---

(i.e. that's my point).

[slackjawsix]

great. now op will get in trouble for nationalism

Or for being an idiot thinking donating to religious services is better than feeding the homeless.

[Deletedaccount1]

'Charity is a cold grey loveless thing. If a rich man wants to help the poor, he should pay his taxes gladly, not dole out money at a whim.'

That might be true if taxes went to the absolute poor. A billionaire like Bill Gates does much more for the absolute poor in the third world through his charitable donations than his taxes which go to the relative poor in the U.S. who already live better than the vast majority of the rest of the world. (The vast majority of taxpayer does not go to help the poor. Much more of it goes to groups like the elderly).

[Deleted]

I wonder if they take things like the "church tax" into consideration too.....

[Shadowsgrace]

The real question is, does it count Donations to Political parties, then it would be moot.

[markos82]

We can also say, America attacked most countries in last 200 years than any other, killed milions, made trillions dollars in damage and in return made trillions in profit?

[Daedius]

Now let's change the numbers to be more in proportion to a country's GDP, for example, to see who's truly generous...

It's like Americans bragging they got the most medals when they had almost 700 members in the Olympics.